How to become an Oracle programmer & developer

With a
strong demand for talented Oracle programmers, I get a lot of queries
asking how to qualify for Oracle developer jobs which cam pay more than
$100,000 per year.

People
are enticed by the high pay, but they need to realize that programming
and systems development are professionals, requiring a bare minimum of a
bachelors degree in computer science or information systems. In a
competitive market, top Oracle programmers often possess masters degrees
and command as high a salary as on IT manager. See here
to see how much a college degree is worth.

The life of a successful Oracle programmer can be
glamorous

While being a Oracle programmer is exciting and lucrative, it's a
career choice that requires years of preparation. The most important
thing to remember is that the job of a Oracle programmer requires a 24x7
commitment. Being an Oracle programmer can be a very stressful,
thankless job, and you may have to support programs that you wrote many
years ago, being on-call on Thanksgiving and Christmas to perform
downtime maintenance. Plus, an Oracle programmer is expected to
constantly keep-up with the rapidly-changing technology, working nights
and weekends on a regular basis.

Becoming an Oracle developer

A common
application is written in standard programming languages such as C, C++,
Cobol or Java, and the calls to the Oracle database (SQL statements) are
embedded within the procedural language code.

Oracle
also has it's own procedural language, PL/SQL (Programming language,
SQL), an ADA-like 4th generation language that is popular for embedded
stored procedures. Oracle also has the Application Express (Apex)
development platform and SQL*Forms and SQL*Reports for report writing.

Oracle
also hires programmers to write and maintain the Oracle software, and
they only hire the best and the brightest. If you want to be a
programmer for Oracle Corporation, note that Oracle hires only from
a small set of universities, including Harvard, Stanford and MIT.
Like many employers, Oracle seeks programmers who have made a lifetime
commitment to programming and seeks those who have distinguished
themselves by graduating from a competitive university.

Becoming an
Oracle programmer

However,
it's the nature of your Oracle programmer experience that matters most:

Real-world coding experience - The path to true Oracle expertise
is paved with programming on real-world, mission-critical Oracle
databases. No amount of at-home programming can compare with the
learning from programming on a real production database. Many
aspiring Oracle programmers will work for free for non-profit
charities in order to get this critical Oracle programming
experience.

Quality of coding experience - There is a wide variation in the
quality of experience in the Oracle workplace. Not all Oracle
programmer jobs are created equal, and a challenging
high-performance programmer job will provide far more expertise
exposure than coding mundane applications.

In sum,
an Oracle programmer is much like an ordinary programmer and developer,
but their skill set is supplemented with knowledge of Oracle internals,
SQL programming, Apex, SQL*Forms, Java and PL/SQL. For more
information on becoming an Oracle programmer, see these books:

Comments and Questions:

Update: 11/19/10

Question: I want to start learning how to be an Oracle
DBA, and hopefully with time sit for OCA and OCP certifications

Answer: Most people start learning Oracle right
after completing a 4 year degree in computer science or information systems.
Oracle is the world's most sophisticated database, it is not for people who
do not possess a professional degree.

Title: Sr. Database Administrator Project
Manger

Support and Maintenance of the Databases Management of
product design, engineering, implementation and integration.

Initiating and maintaining partner relationships.

Requirements and Salary:

4+ yrs. + Bachelors degree, $90,000+

5+ yrs. + Bachelors degree $100,000+

******************************************

> >> I wanted to thank you people again for the warnings
and for letting me know that it's not an easy path

Our expert responds to this reader's note: No
problem! If your boss will pay for it, far and away the best way to prepare
is to take the Oracle university classes.

If not, get several OCP preparation books, and start
by passing your OCA exam and then your
OCP exam.

Then, you can apply for a junior DBA position. The best
places to start are shops that don't pay much, hospitals, colleges and
charities. I started my apprenticeship at a university, right after
completing my masters degree.

��

Burleson is the American Team

Note:This Oracle
documentation was created as a support and Oracle training reference for use by our
DBA performance tuning consulting professionals.
Feel free to ask questions on our
Oracle forum.

Verify
experience!Anyone
considering using the services of an Oracle support expert should
independently investigate their credentials and experience, and not rely on
advertisements and self-proclaimed expertise. All legitimate Oracle experts
publish
their Oracle
qualifications.

Errata? Oracle technology is changing and we
strive to update our BC Oracle support information. If you find an error
or have a suggestion for improving our content, we would appreciate your
feedback. Just e-mail:
and include the URL for the page.